How do I get the version of oracle?

Question

Hi All,
how would I write function that would tell me
what version of the DBMS I am using?
Something like ...
<pre>
create function getVersion return varchar2 is
version varchar2(100);
begin
select ???? into version from ????;
return version
end;
</pre>
Thanks

Answer 1

Ok, the following I tried in 7.3.4.5, 8.1.7.0, 8.1.7.4, 9.2.0.1, 9.2.0.4, 9.2.0.5, 10.1.0.2 and 10.1.0.3
create function v return varchar2 is
    v varchar2(40);
begin
    select substr(banner, instr(banner,'Release')+8,instr(banner,' - ')-(instr(banner,'Release')+8)) into v from v$version where upper(banner) like 'ORACLE%';
    return v;
end;
set serverout on
exec dbms_output.put_line(v())
9.2.0.1.0HTH
Laurent Schneider
OCM DBA